Understand how illustration and text contribute to meaning: This unit emphasizes the symbiotic relationship between text and illustration, demonstrating how they work together to convey a story’s message. Look at the use of speech within the text. Could you rewrite the story as a play? Could you perform the play to others? The gorilla took Hannah to see the orang-utan,and a chimpanzee. She thought they werebeautiful. But sad.

The illustrations are beautiful and really make the story come alive, and although children of primary level would not understand all the Spanish language and the sentence structure, it would be a fantastic book to read to younger KS2 students who were learning Spanish. Gorilla’ is an intriguing picture book from the esteemed author and illustrator Anthony Browne. The narrative uniquely examines serious themes like loneliness and parent-child relationships through the lens of a human-gorilla transformation. Central to the story is a young girl’s solitude and her relationship with her father. The narrative is layered with subtlety, inviting children to interpret the story in their unique ways. The intricate beauty of the illustrations not only appeases the eye but also encourages children to share and revisit the book.

Let us help you

The reader (along with Hannah) now learns that Dad really does think about his daughter. He has intuited that Hannah is fascinated with gorillas, and has planned exactly the birthday outing she has been dreaming about. He’s the sort of dad to hang Hannah’s pictures on the wall, framed. The young readers are left with the message that even when they feel that their caregivers don’t care about them, parents actually do love them, no matter what. This is a reassuring story: children will eventually receive the attention they crave.

The toy magically grows into a real life gorilla and adopts the father figure role by taking Hannah to all the places she'd hoped to visit. Hannah, a young girl, absolutely adores gorillas. The posters in her room; the bedside lamp, the box of cereal, are all adorned with her favourite animal. She spends her time reading, drawing or watching programmes about them. She has yet to see one in the flesh. Look at the map on Hannah’s wall. What place is shown in it? What information can you find out about that place? The book could be used as a class story because of the numerous talking points i.e. discussing Hannah’s emotions (there is a wide range throughout the text), whether animals should be kept in the zoo (Hannah says she feels “sad” when visiting the zoo) and the depiction of a single parent family (Hannah’s mum is absent from the story). The story could also help inspire creative writing; children could develop their own adventure/dream stories with their favourite animal. Or alternatively children could write a letter to Hannah’s Dad (or vice versa) explaining how she feels during the first part of the book, this activity may be better suited to older pupils.

Teaching Ideas and Resources:

Hannah loved gorillas. She loved reading about them, looking at films about them, and drawing them. Unfortunately, her hard-working and rather distant father never seemed to have the time to take her to the zoo to see them live. He was always busy working in the evenings, or too tired at the weekend. Then, on the night before her birthday, Hannah dreams that the toy gorilla her father has given her comes to life and takes her on a magical night-time trip to the zoo, the movies, and a restaurant. It's a wonderful experience, but no more wonderful than her father's offer, the next day, to go to the zoo together... Themes of childhood loneliness is very strong in the first half of the story and whilst Hannah dreams of trips to both the zoo and cinema, it's nice that she actually gets an even better treat on her birthday. They both crept downstairs, and Hannah put onher coat. The gorilla punt on her father’s hat andcoat. “A perfect fit,” he whispered. The story is about Willy the gorilla, who is a bit of a wimp. He decides to 'beef up' as he is fed up of being called a wimp, so he does this. Can he change though? The text itself features relatively complex sentance structures so is ideal to read to a very young child or great to use to develope the reading skills of a more accomplished reader.

However on the eve of her birthday something peculiar happens… She awakens to discover a gigantic gorilla at the end of her bed! Thus, beginning a magical adventure, the pair embark on trips to the zoo and cinema. The best part with revisiting these is seeing the deeper meanings that you might have missed as a kid...

Looking for something different

Write in-role to explore and develop an understanding of character: By writing from the perspective of the characters, students will gain a deeper empathy for them and a more nuanced understanding of their motivations and emotions.